Qube and MiT partner on multiscreen projection at Comic Con

Qube Cinema partnered with Moving Image Technologies (MiT) to provide multiscreen projection of synchronized digital-cinema content in Hall H at Comic-Con International in San Diego.

Visitors to ComicCon saw digital presentations on four screens, simultaneously projected from five synchronized DLP projectors, all powered by the Qube XP-I server and Xi Integrated Media Blocks (IMBs).

Meeting Services Inc. (MSI) contracted venue-display experts at MiT to provide the d-cinema projection technology for Hall H. Although MSI had used Series 1 DLP systems for the previous four years, they needed to upgrade to allow for higher-quality display and a fully secure environment to all their screens simultaneously. MiT found what they needed in Qube Cinema and their equipment, which can sync multiple Series 2 DLP projectors.

“We needed to sync as many as five Series 2 projectors displaying on four screens simultaneously and Qube Cinema had demonstrated they could do this,” said Riche Stanley, technical sales for MiT. “Their server and IMB setup complies with DCI specs and means that we can show 4K, 3D and high-frame-rate content in the immediate future.”

The ability of the Qube XP-I server and Xi IMBs to synchronize multiple projectors had previously been demonstrated at the world premieres of The Hobbit. The XP-I server has the throughput to play back digital content to multiple DLP projectors at 1 Gbps, sufficient to show 2K 3D content at up to 120 fps per eye.

“We synced four projectors at CinemaCon last year and three projectors again this year,” said Rajesh Ramachandran, CTO of Qube Cinema. “This spring we showed MiT a demo, syncing six projectors, and were pleased to see how well the XP-I could handle the data throughput to all six of the Qube Xi IMBs embedded in the projectors.”

Over two dozen different presentations were staged in Hall H at Comic-Con, including a 3D show for a standing-room-only crowd of over 6,500 guests. One large screen, and three “delay” screens suspended from the ceiling for audience members more than 150 feet from the stage, showed 2D and RealD 3D content from NEC NC2000 and NC3200 Series 2 DLP projectors synchronized by the Qube XP-I server and Xi IMBs.

“The beauty of this multiscreen projection system is its ease of operation,” said Eric Bergez, director of sales and marketing for Qube Cinema. “It eliminates the unnecessary redundancies and complicated hardware configurations offered by other vendors and provides full DCI compliance—previously unheard of in digital cinema.”

In addition to synchronizing five DLP projectors, the Qube XP-I and Xi IMBs meet DCI specs for security of digital-cinema content. All files were encrypted and the forensic watermarking remained intact on all four screens.

“We now have a system that meets the needs of the special event business without compromising the security of the content,” noted Ken Freeman, the technical director for Hall H. “We don’t have to bypass any security features to get images displayed on four screens or into redundant projectors.”